Happy two weeks until BlizzCon, everyone! I’ve covered several previous datamining clues towards expansion seven in these past few months, and unless something huge happens, this should be the last one. On MMO-Champion’s “Official Patch 8.0 Speculation thread,” a list from the game database was uncovered that could point towards four new (sub)races being added in. What are these potential subraces? What is the evidence for them? Find out after the jump!

This newest discovery came about when MMO-Champion poster KayRule showed something curious they’d found in the WDBX Editor, a program used to view and edit the client db files in World of Warcraft. There had been a previous “leak,” using edited information from WDBX which proved to be a hoax, but notable dataminer Marlamin has confirmed KayRule’s discovery to be legitimate. So what exactly did they find?

KayRule had looked through the “chrraces” folder, which contains data for all races, playable and NPC alike, that can equip armor. At the very bottom of the list were four new entries: Nightborne, Hightmountain Tauren, Lightforged Draenei, and “Void Elf.” Stranger still was their data for “CreateScreenFile” and “SelectScreenFile.” This information is used to indicate what the background shows up on the character creation screen. Non player races that can equip gear, like fel orcs, naga, vrykul, and forest trolls, always have entries of “0” for those fields as they are not playable and would never appear on the character creation screen. Not only do the four new entries have values for what background should show up during character creation, they’re the same entries as certain other races:

Nightborne – Blood Elf

Highmountain Tauren – Tauren

Void Elf – Night Elf

Lightforged Draenei – Draenei

No other entries share ID numbers for those fields, except for Worgen and Gilnean (as you customize each form separately) and the three entries for pandaren due to their ability to choose a faction (alliance, horde, and pre-choice Wandering Isle). It’s as if these four new races are subraces of the above.

While all four of these entries stand out, the two most interesting are Nightborne and void elves. All nightborne models currently in-game cannot equip armor, their clothing is all part of their base model. And no one has any idea what “void elves” even are.

The highmountain tauren and lightforged draenei stand out as well, because variants of existing races usually don’t get separate entries. For example, highmountain tauren aren’t a separate model from player tauren, they’re just extra character customization options not available to players. This is the same for examples like wildhammer and dark iron dwarves, or mag’har orcs, which are not included as separate entries on the database list.

There is an exception to the rule. As visible on the above screenshot, lightforged draenei are separate models from player draenei. There are also the strange “orcmale/femaleshadowmoon” models, but they cannot be customized and don’t actually seem to be used in-game. So it may be possible that Blizzard has just changed the rules on how they catalog NPC races in their files.

However there’s no explanation for nightborne, who as mentioned previously would need an entirely new model to be able to equip armor like every other race on the list, and void elves, which we’ve never head of before. Speaking of void elves, this makes a strange set of items found months ago on the 7.3 PTR make a lot more sense.

Handclaw discovered a set of weapons, and matching icons for them, on the PTR all labeled “Voidelf.”

They never appeared in 7.3, and while Alleria, a high elf, become a void user, she never has any weapons matching that art style, nor is there any sign of her teaching other elves to use the void. For those reasons the models were quickly forgotten about. Perhaps they were just leftovers from some scrapped idea for 7.3. That’s all changed now that void elf has showed up again in the files, this time as a playable race. The fact that they share the same character creation screen IDs as night elves suggest they’ll be an alliance subrace, and since the high elf Alleria Windrunner is the closest thing we’ve to got a void elf so far, perhaps this means we’ll finally get playable high elves of a sort.

So with this evidence, I would hazard to guess that expansion seven will add at least four subraces to the game. Lightforged draenei and void elves for the alliance, and nightborne and highmountain tauren for the horde. I’m not as confident in this as the Kul Tiras information, as that follows previous trends for expansion leaks. This is uncharted territory, and maybe Blizzard really has just changed the way they categorize NPC races in their database. But the evidence is strong enough to at least give this serious consideration. Either way, we’ll know in two weeks.

See you at BlizzCon!

UPDATE: Danny asked during the GamesCom 2017 World of Warcraft: Legion 7.3 interview whether the Lightforged Draenei would be considered to be a choice in the draenei character customization at a later date. Seems they took the question to heart.

We noticed that there is a new draenei model. The Lightforged draenei. There is a lot of customization on their models for the existing draenei. Are we going to see any of that in the future for our draenei characters, or is that just pretty much only for NPC models?

Ion: For now just the NPC models. I can’t say what the future holds, but yeah, we were just trying to build out a very different ecology of draenei. These are the Army of the Light (Lightforged), and they have been in the direct service of the Naaru, fighting the Legion, fighting these battles across worlds, so we wanted to make them very visually distinct; and as we were throwing out a full cast of NPC characters, we wanted a lot more customization to help distinguish them from each other.

Now, in terms of player customization, we know that is something that there is always demand for; and for sure, that is the sort of thing that we would want to revisit in the future, and just open up customization options wherever possible.

ArticleI will absolutely fall pass out with excitement if this is real and announced at Blizzcon.

It's hard not to get my hopes up, but I really really hope subraces are the direction they're going to go in terms of the new thing next expansion. Crossing my fingers if it's true that there'll be even more.

Hmm. Well, more race variants is what people have been asking for, but the conclusion the author is making aren't really what people have been asking for, either. I know I'm being a downer here, but I honestly hope this isn't correct. Having Nightborne as a Blood Elf variant would seem extremely shoe-horned, contrived to me. If they do add racial variants I hope it's the ones people have wanted, and not a situation where they feel obliged to be all symmetrical and add only one per race and then a bunch of contrived ones just to ensure every race gets one. If races don't have a suitable variant to add, just let it be.

But who knows what the intent of this datamined info really is. Maybe we'll know in a week!

The more I read this, the more I'm not excited for this. As Wain said, this isn't exactly the Subraces that people wanted. People want Dark Irons, Wildhammers, Mag'har, other Troll races, Broken, etc. Here, Highmountain Tauren and Lightforged Draenei are the only ones that make sense, and the latter isn't exactly amazing. For Lightforged, the main draw for them is the additional customization options, which just should be given to normal Draenei.

Whilst Nightborne get along with BEs and have a similar culture, they aren't a subrace. And I don't think Kaldorei would accept Void-infused elves amongst them.

I'm extremely excited for Blizzcon, and I hope we get a new playable race or subraces. However, I hope this isn't it.

Last edited by Valnaaros on Sat Oct 21, 2017 9:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

After thinking this out. Reading what others have said. I'm finding myself in agreement with Wain & others.

While I'd LOVE subraces if a whole new race isn't going to happen I'd really like it to be done right. Frankly my belief in Blizzard's ability to do it right just isn't there. I guess we'll all see at Blizzcon.

I hope the 'subrace' idea gets expanded. I don't at all mind not getting a brand new race, if it means we'll get some more variety with the races we do have. I just hope they don't limit it to just those four. All the main races, especially the older ones are in serious need of some upgrades.

While it does sound promising and interesting (and sorta hints at Alleria choosing Alliance over family and BElves, if Void Elves are connected to her and are the Ally option), I'm going to try and not get too hyped before BlizzCon

EDIT: After giving it a bit more thought, I find this choice of sub-races a bit hard to believe in. Instead of going for long-time allies of one of the factions (such as Dark Irons or/and Wildhammer for the Alliance and Taunka for Horde) choosing groups that are neutral in the story seems a bit off. It is hard for me to imagine Nightborne raising arms against Night Elves because Tyrande wasn't polite enough after everything she has done for them. Likewise, Highmountain Tauren who don't even acknowledge players' taurens as kin. Not to mention, that having Alleria go full-fledged Alliance and take her followers with her will put most eggs in the Alliance basket themes-wise. Light is already a theme strongly associated with the Blues, pushing Void in there will leave Horde sorta bare.

As am I, Shelassa. These choices don't make a lot of sense, and there are far better (and more requested) options out there. Besides, if these really are indicators of playable subraces, that would be a major mistake on Blizz's part to leave readable data like that in the files.

I'm really hoping the Nightborne one is true, and the Void Elf also sounds cool, but it also sounds like it should be an available spec rather than a whole sub-race. If both come out, though, idk whether I'll want to make a Nightborne or a Void Elf first. Sounds pretty cool to me, even if they aren't the sub-races people want.

Also, Veph, I agree with the dark Rangers I'd be very, very tempted to make Krys one

The nightborne one doesn't make sense to me unless they're going to go through and re-rig them—they've stated multiple times that they're not happy with the silhouette confusion that pandaren cause, being on both factions. Nightborne use Night Elf animations nearly exclusively, and share an incredibly similar silhouette. If Nightborne were going to be a sub-race, it would make much, much more sense for them to be the Alliance variant, because then there would be no confusion at a distance if that person up ahead was on your side or not.*

I'm down with Highmountain Tauren for sure, but I would be very sad if the only way to get access to Yrel's horns would be by being Lightforged—I really don't like the look of the Lightforged very much, they don't feel... I dunno. They feel like they've been painted yellow, not infused with Light, lol. As for void elves... need more information. Like, what they actually ARE… beyond "elves that are voidy, oooOoOoOo" I mean e__e

(* name colour and nameplates are obviously the easiest and most common way to tell—I only have names turned on for hostile players so if I see someone at a distance with a name I know it's gonna be the opposite faction—but that's not usually a consideration when we're talking about in-world design considerations)

It doesn't make sense from a story perspective for the Nightborne to just turn against the Alliance, even after all they did for them during the initial Suramar questline and the Insurrection questline. And as you said, Xella, it would be going against what Blizz said in regards to Pandaren.

I am fine with Highmountain, but the issue I have seen others mention is that the Highmountain have had no interaction between them and the Thunder Bluff Tauren. They never even call them their kin. And, like the Nightborne, the Highmountain would be turning against the Alliance after all that the faction did to help them. Besides, if they're going to give us Highmountain Tauren, they should also give us Grimtotem, Taunka, and possibly Yaungol.

I am most against the Lightforged being a subrace. They aren't even a subrace; just Draenei heavily imbued with the Light. The only thing people have wanted from them is their additional customization options.

Void Elves, based on the untextured model found in the DB, are High Elves imbued with the Void, like Alleria. It would be Blizz's way of giving High Elf fans HEs, but without being near-exact copies of BEs, appearance wise.

There is an issue with the Lightforged and Void Elves going to the Alliance. As has been seen throughout this xpac, but a ton on Argus, is the theme of Light and Void. The Alliance would be getting both the Light and Void, whilst the Horde wouldn't get either.

Personally, I'm just hoping that all of this stuff isn't true, or that there are more subraces than just these. I would much rather have Wildhammers, Dark Irons, Frost Trolls, Sand Trolls, Forest Trolls, Grimtotem, Taunka, Elf Forsaken, Broken, etc.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Yahoo [Bot] and 4 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum